The 2012 Vanier Park Cyclocross, held on Sunday September 30th in Vancouver, BC, was a roaring success. Vanier Park racing is known to have the blessing from above but this year the weather was crazy sunny - unlike anything we have seen before. And so was the turnout: the event had at times the flavor of an open air concert, with people sitting around on the grass eating and watching the race, kids laughing and riding around and lots of women and men with big sweaty smiles on track to a great result.

FINE day for a cyclocross race

The volunteer crew from WestCoast Racing and Trek RedTruck Racing created a course that revealed years of hands-on experience and made sure that legs and lungs would hurt. Less bumpy then in the past, but with tricky loose ground sections, the course demanded full attention through the high speed turns and over the challenging man-made obstacles.

Racing started at 10:30 with the citizen categories setting the mark, with a fast pace and a deep field of many now unlicensed former fast men and women mixing it up with the beginners, followed by Juniors. Taking the win was Hugo Van Hoogstraten (who is clearly from the Dutch tradition of cross), followed by David Stringer in second, while the Citizen Women was won by Carol Prince.

Sandra Walter

In the second start we saw the Open Women and Master Women battle for victory, with Local Ride sweeping the podium. Sandra Walters took the top honors, Jean Ann Berkenpas was second and Steph Roorda finished third, while the Master Women on the podium were holding their little ones (with US mom Emily Sportman on top, followed by Karen Todd and Corinne Issel).

At the same time we had the Men 3/4 and Master Men 3/4 steamrolling across the course with a fierce battle for Alpha Male dominance. When the dust settled the winners emerged in form of Squamish all-rounder Kelly Servinski, Nigel Kinney and Ted Martin for the Cat 3/4 Men. Vincent Marcotte made winning look easy by beating out Jussi Jrakkola and Aaron Weiss for the Masters places.

The crowd was in a good mood after the Steed Cycles’ free Kids race, where around 70 (!) kids of all ages tried to copy their bike obsessed parents. They were totally excited and Distance Runningwear’s Dave Cressman had his hands more than full (and was glad to retire onto the Single Speed bike right after). A nice little course that was busy long after the kids event was over saw many giggles and cheers, but also true competition among the little ones.

While the Kids and parents were lining up for the BBQ it was getting quiet on the course; the calm before the storm. The last start of the day had three groups of men: the men without shifters (Single Speed), the men without age (Master), and the men without limits (Elite). Never before has Vancouver seen such a lineup of single-speed competition (watch out, Portland, here we come) with nine committed no shift warriors on the start. Nick Berry would take the cake, despite his efforts at the New Brighton race the day before, Nils Steiner finished second and co-race director Paul McClosky (also tired from lap counting on Saturday) rounded out the top three.

The ageless and eventual winner Master Bobby Welbourn had his work cut out to keep runner-up Chris McNeil at bay, with Martin Bojesen finishing in third.

And then there were only the elites left on the course ...

It was clear when five-time winner Tyler Trace didn’t show up that we would see a different race in Vanier Park. And, unlike last year, when Tyler rode away to a convincing solo win over Pinfold, this year team tactics played a big role. It was Team H&R Block (Andrew Pinner Pinfold and Aaron Schooler) against Team Kevin (Noiles and Calhoun), while in the background the battle for fifth was in full swing.

The H&R guys put up a smart fight when Kevin Calhoun suffered a mechanical, making Kevin Noiles do the bulk of the work in the later part of the race. But the winner takes it all: Pinner made it clear that despite being a daddy he still can let his legs to the talking. Vanier Park race director Sven Sturm didn’t find the shortcut he hoped for and got beaten on the line by a stronger riding Trevor Pearson. Matt Hornland was another race director (New Brighton) in the Elites and narrowly avoided being lapped.

Altogether racers came out yet again in record number (we counted 194 licensed racers) to one of BC’s top cyclocross events. While we will be talking about the never-ending summer of 2012 for a while, the memory of the 2012 Vanier Park will be a fond one. And, as usual, there would be no racing without our generous sponsors and supporters: